


Field Guide to the Birds of Afghanistan

by aderyn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dreams, Episode: s01e01 A Study in Pink, Episode: s02e01 A Scandal in Belgravia, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Love, Memories, Promises, War, and sometimes yourself, and you see the battlefield, love and death, walk with Sherlock Holmes, what's the difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 15:31:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John dreams in all the battlefields.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Field Guide to the Birds of Afghanistan

 

_"There are only two things that are absolute realities, love and knowledge, and you can't escape them."--Olive Schriener_

****

**_I.  Nectariniidae_ **

He sees them, flying east at night.

Chinooks, Blackhawks, Apaches, frontier names for what are hummingbirds, hummingbirds.

Spider-chasers chasing themselves.

Dreams.

We have those in London too, Sherlock says, and his hand, soft claw, lands on John’s knee, rests.

**II. _Accipitridae_**

Shot.

Watson these are the spaces we happen in,

his commander said.

Not the churches and pubs and schools and courtrooms.

But between ribs, blades, between life and death, the place scars are, hearts lifted with surgical precision and put back.

You know this.

The surprise of impact: love or death; love or death.

Who’d you die for, kill for. And for what.

The scar’s a clawburst of raked flesh.

There are eagle-eyed snipers

sleeping curled in the sediments

of the Helmand, the silt stored under the kitchen sink

at Baker Street, greenish, full of  god-knows-what.

Sherlock your cloudbursts, your…

oh, eyeballs.

He wakes with a nosebleed, presses to it

a handkerchief not his.

**III. _Anatidae_**

Oh, a party. The best memory.

A mirror and a gathering. Christmassed

garlands and friends flocking to--

well, there’s music. A carol and a waltz.

It smells like ash.

His hand lands on Sherlock’s knee, rests.

**IV. _Corvidae_**

This time it’s a flophouse.

Faces all Sherlock’s.

Hands warm in the rank and

maybe tattoos, sooty and feathered.

Three bodies in a bed.

But whose. Whose.

And are they alive.

He stoops for pulse.

**_V. Passeridae_ **

Those eyeholes are familiar.

A room, two chairs, a fireplace.

The particular heat of Baker.

Dead Sea Sparrow, Sherlock crows,

holds a feather over his head, legs licked

by a black gown. Can you hear me.

Do you hear me John.

He’s the one bleeding.

Sparrows fly missions from the land of the dead,

someone told him once.

And don’t we all just live there.

Don’t we all, Mary says, her breath so warm,

her hand so steady on something, a holster.

Someone whispers _he died for you twice._

_And would again._

He crouches behind a clock face.

Feels Regent's. Feels spires.

The bells ring them over into Sunday.

**VI. _Ardeae_**

They meet in a house of shining glass.

Stand stiff-necked on a bank and shake.

I made you a promise, Sherlock says. Intend to keep it.

Takes his hand, cool, dry, still a cipher.

He knows a soldier off to die.

_Ardea fidelis. In arduis fidelis._

Blink. Not again. Wake up. Wake up.

He’s standing on the roof himself this time.

Just toeing the edge. In the sky over London,

a plane takes off, his heart stuttering in the engine.

**Author's Note:**

> Nectariniidae (sunbirds and spiderhunters)  
> Accipitridae (hawks,eagles, and kites)  
> Anatidae(ducks, geese, and swans)  
> Corvidae (crows, ravens, and jays)  
> Passeridae (sparrows)  
> Ardeae (herons and egrets)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Ardea cinerea, Grey heron](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Heron)  
> [Afghan spiderhunters](http://www.globalspecies.org/ntaxa/906070Afghan)  
> [Birds of Afghanistan](http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/checklist.jsp?region=AF)


End file.
